GUWAHATI, May 16 ? Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today stated that the ongoing eviction drive by the State Forest department would continue till all forest areas including wildlife sanctuaries and national parks were cleared of encroachers. Talking to this newspaper, Sri Gogoi said the State government was bound by the Supreme Court directive to purge forest areas of encroachers and could not stop the eviction drive despite the resistance from encroachers or the criticism from different quarters. When his attention was drawn to the incidents where a couple of ruling party MLAs tried to interfere with the eviction drive of the Forest department, the Chief Minister said, ?Everyone should understand that the eviction operation is being carried out in compliance with the apex court directive.?
The Chief Minister criticised the previous Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) regime for failing to address the acute financial crisis in the State in the best possible way and thereby allowing the crisis to deteriorate to the critical state as it was today. He said, ?With a friendly NDA government at the Centre, the AGP regime was in a better position to derive more assistance from the former provided it had made a persistent effort.? However, Sri Gogoi was quick to point out that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre was not ?non-cooperative? to the incumbent Congress government in the State. Rather he said, ?The same Central government is now more appreciative of the financial crisis in the State because of the sustained efforts made by the present State regime in presenting the real picture of the crisis.?
Nevertheless, the Centre is yet to respond to the Gogoi government?s demand for compensation against the Rs 1000 crore which the State did not receive because of wrong calculations on the part of the Finance panel. On the other hand, the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is yet to pay over Rs 450 crore sales tax due to the State much to the chagrin of the government. According to Sri Gogoi, the State required an additional Rs 125 crore every month to bear its expenditures which have led to the perennial problem of excess overdraft with the RBI every month. Even as the State government employees are once again flexing their muscles over delay in payment of salaries for the month of April, the Chief Minister said the government had been trying its best to pay salaries to its staff within the month. He denied to accept that his government was diverting funds from development heads to pay salary to the employees and stated that ?payment of salaries to its staff is not the sole responsibility of the government which also has to give priority to development works to bring the deteriorating State economy back on the rails.?
The Chief Minister was also critical of the State employees? demand for raising the retirement age to 60 years as he said such a step would only block employment avenues for lakhs of unemployed youths in the State. He, however, said his government was not opposed to paying the employees at par with the Central government staff ?subject to availability of resources? which is again a remote possibility given the acute financial problem. Stating that his government firmly believed that development must take place in the State as a prelude to solution of related problems including that of insurgency. ?Development must precede peace and it is not the other way around as was the policy of the previous AGP regime which waited inordinately for restoration of peace before taking up development work,? Sri Gogoi said. He claimed that implementation of rural development schemes in the State had been started in right earnest and termed them as major success for his one-year-old government.
Stating that it is hardly possible to root out corruption, the Chief Minister advocated for administrative reforms in order to check corruption at all levels. He said the administrative procedure in the entire country needed be simplified to neutralise those bureaucrats who throw spanner in the development process taking advantage of complicated procedures. According to the Chief Minister, one of the major achievements of his government during its first year in the office was that a major financial institution like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has shown confidence in the government through their commitment to provide assistance in infrastructure sector.
?The financial institution and the industry have realised that the present government in the State will perform and therefore shown an interest in investing here,? the Chief Minister said informing that a move is afoot to introduce ?single-window clearance? system to lure industrial units. On the performance of his ministers, Sri Gogoi said every minister had been asked to submit their one-year progress report and did not rule out that achievements of ministers may have a bearing on the reshuffle of the ministry. He stated that the much-awaited reshuffle and expansion of his ministry would be carried out by the end of the month. On the raging controversy over check-gates on national highways, the Chief Minister said only the ?legal ones will stay? while on the alleged ?illegal? syndicate in the coal business, he said, ?if it is illegal, it can?t stay.?